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2023 MADE Bike Show: Sklar and Roly Poly Bean Bike Presented by Brooks England

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2023 MADE Bike Show: Sklar and Roly Poly Bean Bike Presented by Brooks England

We’re in Portland for MADE Bike and are kicking off our coverage with a special project between Sklar Bikes, Roly Poly Coffee, and Brooks England: The Bean Bike! Keep scrolling for a detailed look at this clever mixed-wheel cargo bike designed for transporting coffee and other goods around town!

Thanks to 1-Up USA for sponsoring our continued 2023 MADE Bike Show coverage!

The Paul Component Engineering, Monē Bikes, and Sierra Nevada Sierra Recycler Cruiser

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The Paul Component Engineering, Monē Bikes, and Sierra Nevada Sierra Recycler Cruiser

For the 6th year in a row, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co asked Paul Components to build a custom one-off bike for them to show-off at Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, then give-away to raise money for a non-profit. After thinking long and hard about what’s already been done and hasn’t been done at Sea Otter, Paul came up with a wild proposition for a super fun bike that would be a conversation starter for sustainability and environmental thoughtfulness in bicycle manufacturing, the #SierraRecycler. Sierra Nevada loved this idea, being leaders in solar power, recycling, estate farming, transportation, composting, and water reclamation in the craft beer industry. Read on to learn more about how this project came together from the folks at Paul!

Josh Reviews His Mash-Up Sklar Sweet Spot: The Sweet Jammer

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Josh Reviews His Mash-Up Sklar Sweet Spot: The Sweet Jammer

The Sweet Spot from Bozeman, MT-based Sklar Bikes is a steel hardtail mountain bike designed to be a venerable quiver-killer. Built around 150mm of front suspension, with clearance for up to 29 x 2.8 tires, its geometry embraces builder Adam Sklar’s mantra of “fast is fun, but fun is fun-er.” Sweet Spots were Adam’s first foray into offering a small batch frame design and sizing, which he hopes will make his bikes more accessible and faster to produce.

I picked up a Sweet Spot of my own earlier this spring after many years of searching for the perfect hardtail. Due to a few requests I had to make it even sweeter, it turned into a custom project that retained the established Sweet Spot geometry and material selection. Below, let’s take a closer look at my build in addition to a brief interview with Adam about these bikes and his design/build process!

the 2021 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co and Paul Component Engineering Sierra Trail Chasers Benefit SBTS and SORBA

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the 2021 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co and Paul Component Engineering Sierra Trail Chasers Benefit SBTS and SORBA

It’s no secret that Pale Ale is Paul from Paul Component Engineering’s favorite beer, and this will be our 4th year collaborating on a custom bike for Sierra Nevada Brewery to show off at Sea Otter and give away to a lucky winner. This year we decided to raise the bar by building up TWO bikes, and using them to help out two of our favorite trail stewardship!

Curtis Inglis’ Titanium Retrotec with ENVE Foundation AG25 Gravel Wheels

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Curtis Inglis’ Titanium Retrotec with ENVE Foundation AG25 Gravel Wheels

I don’t know about you all but personally, I miss seeing off-the-wall crazy custom bikes at the various tradeshows. With the pandemic canceling the 2020 and most likely 2021 dates for various open houses and NAHBS, I’ve just accepted the fact that those balleur bicycle gallery shoots will have to wait. That said, when projects like this fall into my lap, I’m more than excited to take some extra time documenting them.

ENVE launched their Foundation Gravel wheels last week and in a perfect world, a press-camp was supposed to happen in Arizona to test out those wheels. ENVE planned on pinging various builders to fabricate the chassis for their full gravel lineup. One of those builders was Retrotec and Curtis went overboard for the event, building a handful of titanium frames alongside Oscar Camarena of Simple Bike Company. When the press camp wasn’t happening, Curtis decided he’d send this bike out for me to document. He needed photos for his website and I won’t say no to content like this…

Many Hands in the Mix: the 2020 Sierra Explorer by BTCHN Bikes

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Many Hands in the Mix: the 2020 Sierra Explorer by BTCHN Bikes

As with year’s past, we love featuring this Chico collaboration between Sierra Nevada, Paul Component, and a California-based frame builder. This year’s bike is stunning and with it comes a huge photo gallery documenting this beautiful build. Check the official press release below with all the juicy photos and read on to find out how you can win this bike!

Wolf Tooth Camo Spider Brings Compatibility to White Industries M30 Cranks

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Wolf Tooth Camo Spider Brings Compatibility to White Industries M30 Cranks

I love seeing component manufacturers working together to improve upon each other’s catalogs. Wolf Tooth worked with White Industries to bring their Camo spider system to the boost M30 cranks. The boost offset optimizes this spider for the M30 cranks with a 52mm chainline or with the G30/R30 cranks will make a 49.5mm chainline.

This spider, combined with a Camo chainring offers:

-Perfect chainline for wear and shifting precision
-Optimal material usage for weight, stiffness, and wear
-Spend less for chainring swapping by buying only the chainring, compared to chainrings that have an integrated spider
-Swapping chainrings is very fast with only five small bolts and no nuts
-Availability, as Wolf Tooth has many direct mount options: round or oval, stainless or aluminum, for several cranksets.
-Color options add a bit of style to accent other colors of your bike or components
-Wolf Tooth’s patented Drop-Stop®  wide/narrow tooth profile for the ultimate chain retention and mud-shedding ability

Check out more at Wolf Tooth and please, more of this collaboration between manufacturers!

Readers’ Rides: Matt’s Ol’ Gary Fish tASSaJARa

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Readers’ Rides: Matt’s Ol’ Gary Fish tASSaJARa

Matt bought this classic Fisher MTB frame for $50 with the hopes of having a good ’round towner. Like all bikes, it’s going through various iterations over the years, with what you’re seeing now being the most current and arguably the best. I guess it depends how the parts bin and jewelry box are lookin’ ya know? 

ENVE Foundation Launch: Alec’s Retrotec Funduro 29er

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ENVE Foundation Launch: Alec’s Retrotec Funduro 29er

With the pandemic putting a halt to NAHBS and our post-NAHBS framebuilder ride/showcase in Sedona this year, we decided to pull something together with our friends at ENVE to commemorate their new Foundation AM30 MTB wheel launch. When ENVE moved into its new carbon manufacturing and testing facility, they worked hard to push the progression of carbon wheel design and manufacturing. Over three years later and thousands of hours developing, today they launched their Foundation Collection, a completely new wheel line that marks a new milestone in wheel design. In short, for those of us who aren’t interested in graphs or projections, ENVE launched a $1600 made in the USA wheelset and to help showcase these new wheels, we pinged three frame builders to showcase these wheels. The last in the series is Retrotec with a beautiful Funduro 29er.

This Cotton Candy Falconer Hardtail Turned Out Sweet!

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This Cotton Candy Falconer Hardtail Turned Out Sweet!

The seed was planted last summer during a weekend visit to Cameron Falconer’s compound in Quincy to ride singletrack in Plumas National Forest, one of my favorite local playgrounds. I already had a 5-year-old Falconer hardtail that I loved and rode everywhere, and there was nothing wrong with it. 

Well, there actually was something wrong with my bike on that Saturday (a component failure), so I borrowed one of Cameron’s personal steel hardtails to ride on Sunday. Luckily for me we ride roughly the same size bike. Cameron has experimented with quite a few geometries over the years since he made my last bike, and the loaner I was on happened to be one of his latest designs. We were riding big chunky rough stuff in the Lakes Basin area and I was bouncing through big rock gardens more comfortably than with my old bike, feeling a lot more stable, and by the end of the ride I was like, “BUILD ME ONE LIKE THIS.

John’s Crust Dreamer 2.0

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John’s Crust Dreamer 2.0

“Where’s your Dreamer?” “What happened to the green Dreamer?” “Do you ever ride your Dreamer?”

Since posting up the gallery of my Crust Bikes Dreamer, it’s been the bike people email me about the most. I get various questions, ranging from the ones I listed above, to questions on the Microshift and how I like the Dreamer platform. When I first got the bike, Crust Bikes and Darren Larkin, the builder of the Dreamer frames, were working on a few details. What I ended up with was a bike that was in-between versions and a few things weren’t working out so well. This prompted me and Darren to talk about the bike in detail and him offering to take it back to update and fix a few things. Read on below to find out what happened between these two models.

Curtis’ Gold Rush Retrotec Funduro 29er

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Curtis’ Gold Rush Retrotec Funduro 29er

Downieville is a sleepy little town in the Lost Sierra. It was first known as “the Forks” due to its geographical location at the confluence of the Yuba and Downie rivers. Like many towns in the area, Downieville was founded in 1849 during the Gold Rush. Later, it was named after the town’s founder, Major William Downie. As you might imagine, this place has a sordid history during the lawless heyday of gold mining, including being the location for the only hanging of a woman in California history. Josefa Segovia was a pregnant Californio resident of the town and was lynched by an angry mob, accusing her of killing a miner in July 1851.

Nearby, in the Sierra Buttes, the largest gold nugget in California history was found in 1869. It weighed a whopping 109.2 pounds. Gold has always been on the lips of those who flocked to Downieville. Still, to this day, don’t be surprised to see active mining claims and people panning for gold at the confluence of the Yuba and Downie rivers.

Since 1995, the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship has thrown a special little event in this town. The Downieville Classic features an XC race on Saturday and a Downhill on Sunday. The terrain is rocky, steep, and silty, making for a tough day on the bike no matter what you’re riding. While they’re by no means rare, seeing people riding and racing hardtails always causes a stir. So this year, I set out to photograph some of these bikes, including Curtis Inglis from Retrotec‘s own Funduro, a shining, gold nugget of a bike.

Shooting the Sklar Sweet Spot 29er Hardtail in the Mountains of Bozeman

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Shooting the Sklar Sweet Spot 29er Hardtail in the Mountains of Bozeman

Bozeman, Montana is a magical place to mountain bike in the summertime. Last year’s trip was epic, so this year we wanted to re-visit this quaint little mountain town. While we were there last month, I was able to shoot Adam Sklar’s latest project, the Sweet Spot 29er MTB. While Adam usually takes on custom bikes, the Sweet Spot will be the brand’s first production model. The Sweet Spot is made in Bozeman, Montana, just like all Sklar Bikes. The aim here is to lower wait times, while not sacrificing quality. It also enables Adam to sell a model that is in-line with his philosophy on mountain bikes.

Mick from 100 Tacos’ Crust Nor’Easter Dirty Tourer

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Mick from 100 Tacos’ Crust Nor’Easter Dirty Tourer

A bike that’s perfect for its one imperfection. Mick hasn’t ever owned a new bike. Not new, new. Like pulling a brand new frame out of a box, new. It’s not that he was opposed to new bikes, he just never really found a company or a frame that fit his ideologies. Over the past few months however, Crust Bikes‘ offerings have really piqued his interest. He works at Golden Saddle Cyclery, a shop that churns out balleur Crust builds all the time. When he saw the new Nor’Easter, it strummed his heartstrings.

The Knolly Fugitive 29er: How a Small, Rider-Focused Brand Stays Ahead of the Game

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The Knolly Fugitive 29er: How a Small, Rider-Focused Brand Stays Ahead of the Game

Modern Modular Boingers, or How a Small, Rider-Focused Brand Stays Ahead of the Game.

Can we all agree that Mountain Bikes are just so damn good these days? Anyone who started out dropping chains on a triple ring rigid MTB back in the day will appreciate how lucky we all are now: brakes stop fast (whether or not your wheels are true); droppers drop; giant cogs for chilling; tubeless tires! Those parts all have to hang on something though, and here’s where we’ve seen leaps and bounds in design in the last five years toward lower, slacker, and longer bikes with short stems, big wheels, and unique suspension designs.